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From: guy%gorodish@Sun.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Pet peeve #1473
Message-ID: <28097@sun.uucp>
Date: Wed, 16-Sep-87 04:59:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: sun.28097
Posted: Wed Sep 16 04:59:06 1987
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> If perror doesn't know what the error is, (meaning, the number is greater
> than sys_nerr), what good will knowing the number do you?

Well, for one thing, you can give the error number when you file a bug report
for the program, instead of just saying it printed "Unknown error"....

I've found that programs that refuse to divulge useful information rarely make
your life better by doing so; programs that just say "sorry, I couldn't open
this file" instead of giving an error message (or, equally bad, programs that
print an error code in numeric form!) make it a lot harder to fix the problem.
	Guy Harris
	{ihnp4, decvax, seismo, decwrl, ...}!sun!guy
	guy@sun.com